


Mrrw~

by Transistance



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Animal Transformation, Canon Trans Character, Cats, Not Serious, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5031874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transistance/pseuds/Transistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grell gets catty, and William is unamused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Felinity

**Author's Note:**

> I want to be the first to say that this is a silly fic. I don't think the charcterization's ideal, nor is the general writing up to as decent a standard as I would like. (Feminine pronouns for Grell because I got about five sentences in and decided I couldn't be bothered correcting myself every time I wrote "she" in spite of it being from Will's point of view.)
> 
> But nonetheless, here it is. Thoughts would be appreciated.

The office was quiet. It was a warm day, late summer, accompanied by that particular lazy ease that spread throughout a workplace that was getting on with its job at its own pace, without worry or distraction. This was due in equal parts to the fact that the death rates were currently abnormally low, leaving reapers more in danger of having hours _cut_ rather than being awarded overtime, and because Grell was currently out on one of the only reaps of the day.

William allowed himself the luxury of leaning backward in his chair a degree or two, relaxing stiff muscles and cramped joints as he did so. _Ah_. Afternoons like this seemed all too rare, and fleetingly short, and -

The telephone on the desk leaped into life quite suddenly with a shrill cry for attention just as William's eyes had been beginning to slide shut, and he jerked wide awake again before fumbling to answer it.

“Spears, Dispatch administrator.”

“Hello again, Mr Spears,” came the even, slimy voice of one particular creature who William had never, ever wanted to hear through telephone nor any other method of communication. 

“Demon,” he hissed. How had _that_ acquired the ability to contact the office (although in fairness William could hedge exactly two bets – one had white hair and one had red)? It had no right to that sort of information, and he had half a mind to slam the phone down before the demon could speak again.

Michaelis sounded almost offended when he answered, although William could hear the sardonic mockery behind the placid tone. “I am only calling to make an enquiry. Is Grell Sutcliff with you?”

“No, he is not, and I will not allow you to speak to him either.”

“So he is within your area, then? You know where he is?”

The insistence of these questions was worrying, especially considering that William did not, in fact, have any idea where Grell was. She was _supposed_ to be on fieldwork for the afternoon, but there was every chance that she could be haunting about the Phantomhive residence again. But the demon had never before actually _phoned_ to check if that was the case - he just dealt with her on his own terms until she inevitably slunk back to her job.

“Yes, I do,” William lied. “Why do you ask?”

There was a very long silence on the other end of the line, and then Michaelis said smoothly, “I've got... something, that I assumed was him. However, I must have been mistaken. Good day.”

And then he hung up, and William put the phone down.

 _Please don't be a body, please don't be a small pile of red reaper bones._ He knew that it was incredibly unlikely that Grell would have been killed – ridiculously unlikely, practically absurd – but it wasn't entirely obvious as to what exactly Michaelis could have been referring to otherwise. 

Perhaps he should take a stroll mortal-side, and find out?

 _No, certainly not._ That would show weakness. And also be a waste of time, potentially a trap and highly embarrassing if whatever the demon had was not Sutcliff. And of course it wouldn't be. The demon would know Grell's scent a mile off, no matter what state she was in – no, he was just trying to mess with William, for whatever reason.

This decision made, William completed his paperwork, ignored the fact that Grell hadn't checked in for two, three, four hours, left the office for the day and ported back into the mortal realm, straight to the Phantomhive mansion.

_Damn._

He hated this particular residence with a passion that would surprise most who knew him; the whole place reeked of the demon that inhabited it, always, and even if it had smelt like roses there was still the fact that _the demon inhabited it_. And that demon was, as it turned out, waiting for him on the front lawn.

“I wondered when you would arrive,” Sebastian said pleasantly. “Although I did think it might take you a little longer than this.”

William glared at him, and decided not to attempt to mask his disgust, mistrust and irritation. “You said you have located my colleague?”

The look Sebastian gave him was unreadable. “I believe so. If you would follow me.” He turned on his heel and moved away without checking if William was trailing behind him or not – presumably knowing that the reaper would – and made his way toward the house itself, which always boded ill.

William was surprised when the demon ducked around the side of the manor to retrieve something, and more surprised when he returned cradling it in his arms like a child.

It was not a child. At first glance it looked almost like a bundle of crimson hair, and for a moment William had the horrible thought that Grell had been _scalped_ \- but then it moved in the demon's arms, turning what transpired to be a face out to look at William with enormous green eyes, and he realized that it was just a cat.

A bright red cat with an uncannily intelligent gaze, but a cat nonetheless. Sebastian's hands moved slightly in its fur, and there was a visible reluctance in his eyes as he handed the feline over. The cat itself, on the other hand, began to struggle in his grip as his hands got close - _too_ close, actually – to William, and it practically launched itself across as William picked it up. It seemed to be about eighty percent hair, the crimson strands as thick and impractical as they were on Grell's usual form, and began to purr loudly as soon as it was in his arms.

“I'm not _certain_ that she's Sutcliff,” Sebastian said slowly, looking mildly put out by its positivity toward William. “But it does seem likely.”

It really did, but William would be damned if he were to stoop to agree with a fiend, so asked instead, “She?”

“The cat is female. That is one of the reasons that I was not certain that it was Sutcliff.”

William almost asked how one went about sexing a cat, but thought better of it. He didn't want to know what manner of sordid activities demons did to cats. “How did you manage to lay your hands on... her?”

“She travelled here of her own volition, and then refused to leave.”

Yes, that sounded like the sort of thing Grell would do. “So you've no idea why she's like this? Could one of your kind do this to a reaper?”

“My kind?” Sebastian tore his eyes away from the cat, which he had been fixated on since she had passed into William's hold, and raised his eyebrows. “No. Other demons perhaps could, though. I do not know why they would bother, though – they would be more inclined to kill a reaper than transform it.” A flicker of malcontent passed across the demon's expression, and he added, “Whomever they are, I personally would be more inclined to thank them than go after them. She's nicer like this.”

“Nicer or not, we're too short-staffed as it is – I cannot allow my subordinate to remain a cat.” This said, William shuffled the cat – could he call her Grell? He couldn't refer to her as 'the cat' forever – slightly in his arms and prepared to leave. Sebastian caught his arm.

“What are you-”

“Take care of her.” The irises of his eyes were bright, glowing soft magenta, and William pulled away sharply. 

“Of course I will.”

“Can I just stroke her a-”

“No.” William jerked away and jumped before the demon's hand could soil the red fur again, materializing outside his own home. 

He would need to inform his department of this tomorrow – and hopefully at least one of them would know what to do – and if that failed, eventually Upper Management would have to be told. But as for now, his work hours were over and he had a cat to look after.

Unlocking his door whilst carrying a feline turned out to be more difficult than he'd anticipated, so he put her down. She let out a very dubious half-growl to express her disapproval of this action and twisted out of his arms to thump down onto the ground on her own terms before entwining herself around his legs, possibly in an attempt to trip him up. He nudged her out of his path with one foot.

“Don't misbehave. You being... like this doesn't excuse bad behaviour.”

Either she couldn't understand his words or didn't care – both were as likely as the other – because she ignored him completely, and as soon as the door was open she shot inside.

William groaned, and wondered exactly what he had done to deserve this particular punishment.

Thankfully the cat didn't trail mud onto the clean floors or immediately start clawing the curtains; she only took the time to explore the house, sauntering from room to room as though drinking in the sights. William was aware that his house wasn't terribly exciting, and found himself acutely relieved that he didn't have or indulge in anything that could have been accidentally left open for discovery by his inquisitive feline guest.

He set about making dinner for himself, one ear open for any sounds of destruction from through the house. 

None came. He made the decision that he didn't need to eat anything particularly impressive, early as it was yet, and so began to shell out tuna and toast for himself – and then he heard the fast patter of the cat's paws making their way swiftly back to the kitchen.

William turned in time to watch her bound through the door, slip on the polished wooden floorboards and then dart across to wind herself around his legs again, purring like thunder.

It turned out to be more difficult to ignore her that he'd anticipated, and to his undying shame he found himself crouching beside her and feeding her bits of tuna from his hand, her tiny pink tongue rasping unhygienically against his glove and her lungs apparently doing their best to blow themselves out in expression of her monumental feline bliss. She butted her head against him with some force behind it once she had eaten all he had to offer, smiling her fixed grin and purring more loudly now than she had in all previous instances put together.

Instinctively he balled his hand into a loose fist and met her resisting push, and she attempted to drape herself over his arm. Was this a cat thing or a Grell thing? He prayed it was the former – if he was unwittingly indulging Grell in some sort of pleasurable fantasy then he would never hear the end of it when she was returned to her reaper form.

He had probably dug the hole deep enough now that he wouldn't hear the end of it anyway. For heaven's sake, he'd just hand-fed her. The moment she got her ability to speak back she would be twisting his actions into something filthy and telling the whole department about how soft their supervisor really was. This unpleasant thought made him stand, drawing away from Grell abruptly. She looked up at him plaintively as though he had offended her and then turned tail and sauntered away.

Deciding that he could trust her not to misbehave – or, more accurately, deciding that he couldn't be bothered monitoring her constantly up to the point where she inevitably did misbehave – William remade himself dinner, ate it quickly and then went to find the cat and see how much damage she had caused.

To his surprise, there seemed to be none. He found her on the windowsill in the sitting room, face pressed close against the glass as she stared out, apparently entranced.

William followed her gaze, and made out the pigeons bobbing around in the encroaching dusk. They were common visitors – he sometimes left food out for them – and their soft cooing was an oddly pleasant backdrop to the end of his day.

Grell seemed to like the pigeons a lot. Her greengage eyes were open like saucers and her whole body went still with the exception of her tail, the slightest end of which twitched. For the first time in decades, Will found himself not the centre of her attention. It was a strangely relieving sensation.

The cat opened its mouth and said “Ch-ch-ch,” very quietly, as though attempting to copy the trill of a bird herself, and somehow managed to make her body smaller whilst increasing the radius of her eyes. Was she attempting to hypnotise the birds? It seemed unlikely – William doubted that pigeons had the attention span to be spell-bound. 

They sat like that for some time, the cat watching the birds and the reaper watching the cat, until eventually William got bored and removed himself from her company to get ready for bed. It had been a stressful day, and he felt that whatever trials tomorrow was likely to bring they would be better faced well-rested. Grell didn't seem to notice his leaving, but half way through getting changed he found her approaching him again, clearly having likewise become tired of bird-watching.

There was a very strong urge to avoid letting Grell see him in any state of undress even if she was currently a cat, so William shut the bedroom door in her face and went to bed.

He had been lying down for a whole seven minutes before the wailing started – a thin, unhappy sound of feline distress that he was more than certain was as much a bid for attention as every other sound Grell had ever made. In response to this he sighed – deeply – turned on his side, and attempted to smother himself with a pillow. This failed to block out Grell's noise.

When she gave up yelling he breathed a sigh of utter relief, smiled slightly to himself and then startled awake at the saw-like noise of claws scratching grooves into the wood of the door.

 _Oh no you don't._

He stood, crossed the room in seconds and yanked the door open. Grell toppled though, having been standing at her full height to drag her claws down the door, and stared up at him through huge, guilty eyes.

“Mmr – ow?” she said, and then, as though she were entirely forgiven, wound herself around his legs.

William swore at her, quietly enough that it was obvious to them both that he was too tired to be angry, and then bent to pick her up. “Horrible creature,” he muttered. “You're almost as bad a cat as you are reaper.”

The noise Grell made sounded like hurt betrayal, and he wondered why he was bothering to talk to her at all. It wasn't as though she could reply. So, instead of risking further offence, he freed one hand enough to stroke her, and listened to her purr.

The further he distanced himself from any reality in which she was Grell the easier to was to be nice to her. Setting the cat down upon the far side of the bed, William crawled under the cover again, and was only mildly annoyed when she tried to clamber on top of him.

“No. Off, or I'll shut you out again.”

She made a minute noise, half a mew and half a growl, and stepped daintily off him to stand at his side. She sniffed at him, and then the bed, turned a circle whilst digging her claws into the sheets - _why, why do you have to do that to my furniture_ \- and the curled herself up very small against his side.

Grell was warm, and William slept surprisingly well that night.


	2. Anti-felinity

He ported directly from his house to his office with her in his arms the next morning, having spent a good half hour attempting to free himself of every clinging strand of crimson hair, and then sent out a memo requesting that his three least useless subordinates convene in his room for a meeting. They weren't friends, exactly, but he'd be damned if he handed Grell over to Upper Management without having tried to do _something_ about the predicament himself.

The called reapers filed in one by one – Alan arrived first, minutes after the notification was sent out, and Eric was not far after. Ronald, on the other hand, slouched in after ten minutes had passed, grinning blearily at the three men and one cat before pulling up a seat and collapsing into it.

“So what's the occasion, boss?” A pause, followed by a half-covered yawn. “...And why the cat?”

“You recall that Grell didn't return to the office yesterday after his last scheduled reap?”

“Ah!” said Ronald, wagging a finger and raising his eyebrows in theatrical understanding. “So you did what any good superior would do and found a cat that looked like him to replace him, in the hopes that nobody would notice.”

“No.” William wondered if he was allowed to award overtime for flippantry, but discarded the thought. “I received a phone call yesterday from none other than the Phantomhive demon, and upon going down to investigate-”

“You went down t'that thing's house?” Eric interrupted. “You've always expressly forbidden us from doing that. Poor show, sir. Hypocrisy in the workplace.”

“Yes, _thank_ you, Slingby. As I was saying, upon going to investigate I was handed this cat – the demon believes it to be Grell, and as much as I hate to do so, I concur with this train of thought.”

“The demon gave you it?” Alan spoke quietly, but as always nobody wanted to talk over him and let him speak in full. “Are you certain it is not a ruse, then? Some way of- of tricking its way into the dispatch building, or simply winding you up?”

Grell took this opportunity to slink out of William's grip and stalk across the table toward Alan, her vivid eyes rather narrow. Unfortunately, upon moving within a metre of Alan, the reaper began to sneeze. Once, twice, three times, and he stood abruptly and retreated away from the table.

“Sorry! I get awful allergies to cats – and dogs, too, sometimes – don't come near me.” Another sneeze.

“Well, I suppose that proves it's a genuine cat,” said Ronald, and clicked his fingers at her. “Here, Grelly-Grelly-Grell. Who's a good mentor? Come here and let me clap you.”

Grell turned her tail to him and stalked back over to William, who prevented her from climbing up him by moving a short distance from the table himself. “The problem we now face,” he said, “Is changing her back.”

Eric gave a choked snort and spluttered, “'Her'? Of all the people in the room, I never thought _you_ 'd be the first t'use Sutcliff's preferred pronouns, if y'don't mind me saying.”

“The cat is reportedly female. I have not checked myself, but am prepared to take the fiend's word for it.”

Three pairs of eyes appraised first William and then Grell in silence before Eric spoke again.

“So you're certain that the Phantomhive demon didnae do this t' _her_ in the first place?”

“I'm certain that if he had the power to do so he would have done so long ago, and most likely not given her back.”

Ronald gave a short, low whistle as perhaps finally the weight of the situation became apparent to him. “So we don't know how to change her back at all? There's no precedent for this?”

“None that I know of,” William told him. “I was hoping that at least one of you would have some idea of what could be done.”

“True love's ki-i-iss,” sang Alan under his breath, the unexpected troublemaker as always, and William glared daggers at him as the other two burst into raucous laughter.

Only when they stopped laughing and looked at him expectantly did he realize that it hadn't entirely been a joke.

“You cannot be serious.”

“It's the best idea that's been put forward yet, isn't it? At least give it a _try_.”

Eyeing them all with what he hoped was an immeasurable degree of dislike, William lowered his lips to touch the cat's spine. It was remarkably difficult not to swallow fur, and her sudden increase in purring made Ronald double over in hilarity and William flush much more darkly than was merited by the situation. For gods' sake, it was just a cat.

In any case, nothing happened. When William drew away an expectant hush fell, but after a minute or two of upholding it it became clear that nothing was about to occur.

“'S 'cos you didnae do it _properly_ ”, stressed Eric, the first to speak. “Obviously you've got to kiss her on the mouth, sir, or it's moot.”

William stretched himself up to his full seated height and glared at each individual around the table in turn, as frostily as he could manage. “Absolutely not.”

“Well, I've no problem with leaving her like this, sir,” said Ronald teasingly, and stretched his arm up behind his head with a yawn, rather cat-like himself. “She's soft, cute and we could probably make her the office masco- hey, hey hey _no don't_ -”

The rest of Ronald's proposition was lost as Grell flung herself at him with a shriek that promised as much bodily harm as a cat could inflict, and he toppled backwards under the blur of red hair and claws.

Eric and William both attempted to get the infuriated feline away from their youngest colleague's face, William distinctly irritated and Eric laughing until Grell unexpectedly turned her rage on him. All three reapers came out severely scratched and bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds, William clutching Grell under her forelegs as far away from his body as possible. She struggled, vicious, and hissed.

“Alright, Ronald, you're officially in charge of all of Grell's paperwork until she is returned to her proper shape.” Some of the anger boiling from Grell's furry form dissipated and her flat-back ears pricked up, but her eyes remained emerald slits and she didn't stop trying to escape his grasp. “Grell, _stop_.”

She growled, the noise high and very much bestial, so William reworded his request. “Grell, if you don't stop struggling I will drop you.”

She went limp, and turned to look pleadingly at him until he rearranged her to sit comfortably in his arms again. “I don't think I need to explain why we have a rule against non-avian animals in the office. Sutcliff will not be remaining a cat. Do you have any _sensible_ ideas?”

Ronald shuffled his feet and muttered something long-winded about capturing a demon and forcing the information out of it, which William ignored because there were hundreds – if not thousands – of different demon subspecies on the streets of London and it would be nigh impossible to hunt down the specific one that had done this. No, a more direct approach was needed if any.

“Is there anyone in the department who knows about shape-shifting spells?” asked Alan. “Even if we could just get her to a point where she could speak, she'd be able to tell us exactly what was done to her, and by whom.”

“Yes, actually, there is someone unusually proficient in changing spells. Unfortunately her name is Grell Sutcliff.”

Eric put a hand over his eyes and just groaned. “We could be at this all day.”

“That will have been worth it if we get anywhere, though,” Alan pointed out. “What do you intend to do if we don't get her back, sir?”

“Hand her over to the council. I don't know what will happen from there onwards.”

“Wait a while before you do that,” suggested Ronald. “Let us sleep on the issue. Who knows, maybe the answer will come in the form of lucid dreams.”

As unlikely as that seemed, William had to concur that it was possible, so dipped his head in agreement. “You can have until tomorrow – but we can't waste any more time after that.”

And then he let them go – or at least let Alan go and shooed Eric and Ronald out of his office to go back to their neglected paperwork – without closure and still, unfortunately, with cat.

William looked at Grell and Grell looked at William and absolutely nothing passed between them in that silent glance. A horrible feeling of vague numbness was beginning to grow in his arms – she was heavy – so he placed her down gently on the floor, and she glared up at him.

“I need to work,” he excused, and attempted to ignore the accusatory stare. Cats weren't usually this angry, were they? On the other hand, perhaps Grell had every reason to be angry. Perhaps the secret to changing her back was something blindingly obvious, and they were all missing it.

Shaking his head, he buried himself in the day's paperwork – there still wasn't enough of it to completely distract him – and was unsurprised when Grell began to clamour for his attention almost immediately. At first it was fairly unobtrusive; she mewed, meowed, and then yowled. He ignored her. She changed tactic, winding herself around his legs and them sinking her claws into them like a scratching post. This had a little more effect – William gave a yelp of startled pain and kicked her away.

This was apparently the last straw, because Grell took the opportunity now to jump square onto his desk, sending papers slipping away under her paws.

“Oh - _Grell_.” Taking a stern tone of voice had as much affect as it always did – i.e. none at all – and then to his horror Grell turned her focus onto the inkwell. “No – _no_ , don't – don't do that – Grell -”

She looked at him, ears pricked and eyes bright, and very gently nudged the inkwell over the edge of the desk with one paw, whereupon it shattered on the ground.

William looked at the mess.

Grell looked at the mess.

William put out one hand and slowly, firmly, forced Grell to follow the same path of descent. She spat and bit his finger, drawing blood before she too fell back to the floor with a _thump_ that betrayed her weight.

The rest of the day passed without terrible incidence. Having apparently sated her desire to disrupt his desk, Grell spent much of the rest of her time in his office following the movement of his pen as he wrote. Ronald offered to take charge of her for a while during the afternoon, an offer which William accepted and was surprised at the kindness of until he learned that Ronald had acquired a laser pointer and spent more than an hour making Grell chase it around the office, destroying several orderly rooms on the process (as well as preventing the rest of the reapers on desk duty from doing their work). Grell and the laser pointer were both promptly confiscated.

Some time after that Alan brought a water bowl in for Grell, and William wondered if reapers could burn in Hell for animal neglect.

Various members of the department – and other departments – made excuses to get themselves into his office in a transparent attempt to confirm that the head of Collections really had brought a cat into work that really did resemble his missing worker, and gave him measuring, sidelong looks when they left. After half a dozen of these visits William locked his door.

Grell grew bored of watching him, after some time, and after sniffing around the entirety of the room she jumped up onto his lap and attempted to make herself comfortable.

William was fine with this until he realized that making herself comfortable involved digging her claws in and out of his thighs, in a way that was clearly not intended to be antagonistic but hurt anyway. “ _Grell_ ,” he hissed again, and she paused in her kneading to look up at him before continuing as before.

Once she had softened his legs into bleeding rags, she did a little dainty half-turn and lay down, coiled tightly as close against his torso as she could go. Unfortunately this just meant that her body was an uncomfortable warmth on his crotch, which made focusing on paperwork more difficult. The cat purred, apparently very happy with his discomfort.

But William was an experienced reaper and had paperwork'd through much worse than a cat on his lap, so he soldiered on until the end of the day, at which point he left the office as soon as possible and jumped home.

In spite of having had the previous day to get used to Grell's small, noisy presence in his house, he found that he still didn't know exactly what she was going to do. Exploring the house – evidently having been completely shot out yesterday – was dropped in favour of running off and hiding under things. William made the mistake of leaving her to it, and came through later to find her attempting to climb up the curtains in one of the spare rooms.

Whilst he attempted to make dinner she wouldn't stop pouncing on his feet, and he had a sudden horrible thought.

Was Grell becoming more cat-like? If left in this form for too long, would she lose all of her reaper self?

Impulsively he bent to pick her up again, and held her before him to look at her face-to-face. “Grell, do you understand me?”

“Mrrw,” she said, and pawed at his face. Her feather-light pads were hard and smooth, and after a moment he deemed the answer unreachable and set her down again. She let out another meaningless noise that told him nothing other than that she was still a cat, and trotted off again.

William sighed, and left her alone. Was she even fully aware of being in this state? Or was she unaware that she had ever been anything else? Did she care at all either way?

It didn't matter, because she couldn't remain a cat either way. The department needed her back as soon as possible.

Later, in the soft darkness of the night, William lay on his back and Grell lay on his chest like a stone, her fur ticklish against his skin and her breath huffing out in time with his own.

“I'm sorry I couldn't help you,” he told her, completely truthfully, and he felt her vivid gaze on his face, blazing. “I'll have to give you to the council, tomorrow, and they'll find someone who can change you back. I don't know how long you'll be with them.” _I don't know if they'll be able to help you either_ , he thought, but didn't speak that admission aloud.

Her small paws kneaded his chest, the motion stinging and comforting, and he listened to the very low sound of her purring as he stroked her, so absent-mindedly.

“As nice as you are now,” William murmured, feeling the weight of sleep encroaching on his coherency, “I liked you better before.”

Unseen in the dark, the cat's eyes snapped open.

* * *

William awoke the next morning to a weight on his chest that wasn't quite the same as the weight that had been on his chest the night before – it was less compact, more angular, and certainly seemed to have somehow gained even more hair – and this was far too confusing for first thing in the morning, so William ran his hand over it, expecting to feel cat.

His palm followed the arch of a breathing ribcage and the smooth dip of a spine, her skin soft and warm and hairless, and he felt her wake at the same time as he realized that he was pinned down under the entire body of a naked Grell Sutcliff.

Grell let out a tiny, quiet noise of contentment just as William tensed and threw her off.

“ _Hey_! What was that for?”

William was remarkably glad that Grell had managed to drag the bedclothes down with her to the floor, leaving him only half-naked on the bed instead of her completely naked on the floor. She peered up at him, squinting through wide eyes in an attempt to see properly without her glasses, and then frowned and looked down at herself.

And then she grinned, wide and exuberant, and William only just managed to sit up before she threw herself back onto the bed and caught him in her arms. “You changed me back! I knew it, I knew it – my love, I knew you could do it!”

Bringing one hand up sharply to cover her mouth before she could kiss him, William shuffled backwards in an attempt to evade her. “How did you- What happened?”

Grell closed her eyes and kissed the palm of his hand, causing him to draw it back almost as sharply as he had put it forth. “Demon, darling,” she murmured, pulling the white of his sheets up around herself. “Caught me off guard on a reap, decided to take things a little unconventionally instead of just killing me.”

“What did you do to wind him up?” There had to be something, he decided. No self-respecting demon would allow a reaper to get away in any state that wasn't permanent.

“I _talked_ to him,” Grell replied rakishly. “You know how I do enjoy chatting away to them when they get in my way. Told him all my woes, all those sad little truths about love, in case he didn't know – and when he got the upper hand he decided that it would be crueller to put me in a form 'in which I could be loved' than to just off me. But you, Will - he didn't count on _you_.”

“What did I do?” He'd been very tired last night. _Please don't say I said I loved you, because I really don't, but in all honesty if I thought it would change you back I probably would have gone for it anyway._

“You said you _wanted_ me,” Grell breathed, as though this were a beautiful, fragile confession. “Not in so many words, right enough, but the meaning held enough for the glamour to break. You said you preferred me like this.”

“...Oh.” Yes, he remembered that. And it was true; he wouldn't deny it. Cats couldn't do paperwork.

Grell, unfortunately, seemed to have taken it the wrong way, because she slid toward him again. The edge of the bed was getting dangerously close. “You wanted me like this,” she breathed, voice far too close against his ear. “And here I am, my beautiful, delightful man.”

“I wanted you able to reap,” he informed her dispassionately. “Had I known you'd take your renewal of body as an invitation to leap straight into my bed I would have been inclined to let you remain a cat indefinitely.”

She drew back, apparently shocked, and pouted at him. “There's no need to say _that_ ,” she huffed. “You were the one who carried me here in your arms – ah, it felt wonderful to be lifted about by you, to be so close to you – you let me _sleep_ on your _chest_.”

“You were a cat.”

“I was me.” 

William sighed. “Well, now you're you in a much more conventional sense than you were last night. Can you go home and leave me be?”

If Grell had still possessed poseable ears, he imagined that they would be down. “Can I not just lie here a while with you? I won't _try_ anything, I promise – not unless you initiate it – I just want to be beside you a little longer.”

“I'd rather you weren't.”

“You had no problem with me last night,” she muttered. “I was still the same person, even if I wasn't my usual self. Why does it make a difference if I'm a reaper or a cat? You wanted me in this form – if I'd known you'd be so cold as soon as I changed back I might've preferred to stay a cat.”

Her mildly hazy logic chipped away at his sense of dignity, and against all common sense William lay back down, slowly, and let Grell haul the covers over them both and rest her head on his chest, her hair soft and her skin warm.

“It's nicer like this,” she said, and he neither agreed nor disagreed, but found his hand wandering small trails up and down her shoulders and back.

He felt Grell smile against him, and listened to her as she purred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if it all seems a bit abrupt? I didn't have the patience to write tons and tons of detail and plot, and as I said, 'tis but a silly fic. I hope it was enjoyable nonetheless.


End file.
